"This feels a bit like overkill," the intelligence operator said. "Sending six of our SRT Operators to eliminate one man. I'm sure you'll be seeing your Sgt. Sagara back here soon."
Captain Testarossa nodded quietly as she looked down at the folder on her desk. It was the training report from the newly appointed J-K Regional Operations Coordinator for Psyche Division, one Ranma Saotome.
Sagara, Sousuke: Sergeant
I've made progress on training the Sergeant to access his chi. As of now, he can produce a fluctuation in his chi that can be observed with the proper gear, and once managed a barely visible aura.
This should translate into at least being reliably able to produce a battle aura in the Arbalest, though I suspect he will still require an emotional high to achieve full power. It is unfortunately difficult to maintain both an emotional high and the meditative mindset required for chi control.
I've started Sagara on some basic chi-use exercises for speed and strength enhancement. Unfortunately, I am consistantly having to re-clarify the limits of a particular exercise, Soldier-boy is very clever at finding alternate method of achieving the same goal. Unfortunately, the goal is often only a means to focus one on the method.
His previous training has focused him on the end goal and avoiding target fixation on any one particular method. I had the opposite problem as a student, fixating on the instructed method even when it was impossible. Neither manner of thought is impossible to get past, however.
I've explained to him the differences in thinking required for these exercises and tried to define the end goal as the ability to be acquired rather than the traditional "take the stone from my hand" style kung fu sensei method.
At this stage in his training, if the lambda driver operates as I suspect, then he'll find it usable, just not to it's full potential. He is still at the very least a year away from practical chi use without enhancing tools or devices.
As such, I spent most of the last lesson telling him how to disrupt another person's control. If he does not have full control himself, it is best if he focus instead on weakening his opponent's resolve. I don't know how well it will work given what the dossier on this Gauron person says about his personality, but any port in a storm.
Hopefully, Sagara would be able to find a way to work around his limited use of the lambda driver's energy well enough to take on Gauron in the enemy's own suit. Or, better yet, strike without Gauron being able to reach the suit.
"I hope you're right," Tessa said.
"Captain," the intelligence officer said, eyeing the folder himself and quite obviously wondering what it said. "If I may, what were in the briefcase Sagara brought in with him?"
"Sensory equipment," the Captain said simply.
*****
Four men and a woman in Mithril SRT uniforms walked along the tarmac of the Indian Ocean Fleet's headquarters. They carried with them dufflebags holding their clothes and a few personal oddiments.
They were an assorted bunch, three were certainly American. One was a loudmouthed man named Jackson with dreadlocks and an accent that came out of the streets. Another was a burly man named Andy with a hick's speech and a cowboy hat. The third, Bill, wore lieutenant's bars and sported a stylish handlebar mustache.
The other two operators were an older man named Baptiste and a woman that the others referred to as Gray. Baptiste might also have been American, but he could just as easily been English or otherwise. Gray spoke with a definite European accent and, judging by her rank, was obviously the second in command under Bill.
"I don't like this," Baptiste said. "Why are they pulling so many of us out just to say we offed one man?"
"Oh quit worrying," Jackson said with a smirk. "Just be glad for an easy job for once."
Their leader was silent as they walked up into the transport plane that already carried their Arm-Slaves.
Most of them were surprised to find a teenager already sitting in the plane and waiting quietly.
"What's this?" Andy asked, frowning suspiciously.
"This is Sergeant Sousuke Sagara," Gray said. "He's had previous experience with the target and the area, so he's been given us on loan from the Pacific Fleet."
"They're making kids sergeants now?" Jackson called out, offended. He moved around to lean his head into Sagara's face and thrust a lolipop at him. "Hey kid, want some candy?"
"Stow it, Jackson," Bill said, not adding anything about Sagara's credentials.
"I'm just fooling around, sir," Jackson said, standing up to walk around to Sagara. "Hey, we'll be working together so let's be friends. What do you say, Tom Sawyer?"
"Sit down and shut up," Grey said, pushing the irritating guy aside as Sagara quietly spit the lolipop out of his mouth. "I'm sorry he's being so rude."
"It's not a problem," Sagara said.
Gray looked down at the amulet he wore around his neck and furrowed her eyebrows. The small crystal looked out of place given what she'd read in the soldier's dossier.
"What's that?" she asked.
"It is a training tool," Sagara said, simply.
"So, you used to live in this area, right?" Gray asked. "That you know the area inside and out."
"Affirmative," Sousuke noted.
"Then we'll be counting on your advice in this operation," she said.
She reached out to shake his hand, but another of her comrades seemed to object as he slammed his foot between them.
"Listen you little fart," he said. "This is our mission, and we don't intend on asking your advice. Got it?"
"Okay, settle down," Bill said sharply. "We have a few pieces of information to layout."
He waited for them to calm down before speaking.
"First, our Arm-Slave units have been installed with a new sensory equipment," he said. "It is supposed to be able to register the energy signature of a new class of experimental AS system. Sagara's machine is fitted with our version of the same system, so we'll be calibrating sensors based on his machine immediately after drop."
"Damn Pacifics, always getting the newest toys," Andy muttered. "Bunch of spoiled brats."
"Do I have to repeat myself?" Bill asked, waiting for Andy to settle down. "Good. Now, the second thing. Apparently, this new system requires a lot of focus and concentration to use effectively. If we want to get around it, we'll have to attack the enemy's mindset. And that's not going to be easy given the pysch profile we have on the target."
"What kind of system is dependent on the operator's mental state?" Grey wondered.
"Trust me, if it's the same system I've heard rumors about," Bill said. "We've got our hands full on this one. The very fact they're giving us information and sensors that seem to be built directly to counter it makes the hair on my neck stand out."
"Wow, this is so cool," Kyoko said as she set her bags down in the entry way and turning about to look at the wide, landscaped grounds, camera clicking.
Several of those pictures ended up with a posing Naiki in them.
Kaname, Shinji and Mizuki were similarly impressed with the island's beauty.
Akane Saotome, dressed in a naval t-shirt and work-slacks stepped out into the doorway to watch the teenagers gawk with a smile. Behind her, Kurz was speaking to the woman's husband.
"First trip to Okinawa, I guess?" she asked Eija as the calmer girl set aside her bags.
"No, we stopped here for a few months while Mother sought property in Tokyo," Eija said.
"You were so close, huh?" Akane said, shaking her head.
Akane glanced back toward Kurz and her husband and then turned to Eija curiously. She wasn't going to ask the kids, but there was some curiosity on her part.
Akane'd been out on the water with her ship dealing with a small fleet of pirates that had taken residence on one of the local islands. Twelve battle converted civilian vessels of various sizes against one Japanese cruiser with its complement, an AS and two ASW helicopters retro-fitted as pirate hunters with minigun emplacements on either side of the craft.
It hadn't been a battle. It had been a mop up.
As it ended, her captain received orders for her to be granted leave, despite having just returned from a vacation. And then, quite coincidentally, Ranma called her asking if she and Ryuu could watch some kids for a week or so. With special focus on protecting her own kids and one other.
Said kids arrive, not with Ranma, but a mercenary who was doing a good job of looking very civilian. Akane and Ryuu had seen too many people like him during the worst days of the Chinese Civil War not to recognize what he was.
Ranma had contacts apparently.
She looked back to the children investigating her home, where they'd stay for the next week, and shrugged it off for now. Her own children, the oldest of the two being ten years old, were still finishing chores but she'd seen their faces in the window a couple of times.
Masaru had something of a pouty look as he took in the "horde of girls" that looked to be taking over his family home, discounting Shinji as a "nerd". He was still in that "cootie" phase which both amused and annoyed Akane thoroughly.
Izumi, the younger sister, had heard that some of the girls were martial artists though, and was eager to see if she could get them to show her some stuff. Quite a hyperactive and talkative one, she was. Rather strange, Akane thought, given that didn't think of either her or Ryuu as talkative or hyperactive.
Some who'd known them both in youth would at least partially disagree with that self-assessment.
Akane was about to walk out to collect the teens and take them to the guest rooms, when an unexpected visitor arrived. She froze quietly at the sight.
A tall, stately woman with dark red hair, well on to her fifties now, though it took a close look to see that. She walked onto the property, entirely self-assured despite not having received an invitiation to arrive at the home of her children by adoption and marriage.
"Oh," Nodoka said as she looked about at the children. "Am I interrupting some school event?"
"No, these aren't students," Akane said. "I'm watching some kids for...for a friend of mine."
"Saotome-san," Eija said, walking up to her host. "Who is this?"
"This is the clan matriarch," Akane said.
"Come now, Akane-chan," Nodoka said. "Don't be so formal, call me 'Mother' now, I keep telling you."
"Then...your my other grandmother?" Eija asked, recognizing the implications of the name and position and unaware of the dangers involved here.
"Excuse me," Nodoka said as Akane flinched. "Could you repeat that?"
The naval officier had an urge to pull Eija aside now, and probably would have quite aggressively had she been younger, but it was too late now.
Why hadn't Ranma warned them about this?
"I am Eija Satomi," she said. "My mother is Ranma Sat.."
"Ranma is your mother?!" Nodoka repeated aghast.
*****
Sousuke's mind drifted back in time towards his childhood in Helmjastad.
A japanese boy sent as assassin by the Soviets into the deserts, and ending up joining them. Early on, before he'd adapted from the Soviet ice to the Helmjastad sand, he'd remembered falling behind while the unit walked from one point to another.
At one point, he'd even fallen into the dust, expecting to be left behind. He'd been lucky, however. Another boy in the unit, the only one of an age similar to Sousuke's, came back to help him up and support him.
A melancholy memory, something that the homecoming had stirred up. Or perhaps before that...when Kaname had asked him about his childhood.
A voice snapped Sousuke out of his reverie.
"Hold up," Bill said, looking down the hill at a pair of trucks carting cloth covered loads further into the desert. "Looks like they're moving quicker than we thought."
"Have you caught sight of the target yet?" Gray asked, bringing up her glasses.
"I count six savages total," Baptiste said. "And one model I've never seen before."
"No, there's one more," Andy noted. "On the truck in the back."
Sousuke scanned back along the two truck caravan to get a look at the eighth AS and gasped as he found the scarred face of Gauron staring back at him.
It wasn't much longer before they'd withdrawn to another site to plan the attack, a simple ambush, which was now going off despite Sousuke's objections.
In all five ASes, the guage on their recently installed sensors raised slowly as the crystals at their core reacted to the increased chi coming into the area, above and beyond what was coming from Sousuke's dormant lambda driver.
However, some of the others paid more attention.
"I've got an increased reading on the lambda sensor," Gray noted quickly.
"Are you sure that's not Sergeant Samurai's machine fluctuating again?" Jackson asked with more than a trace of dismissal.
"No," Gray said. "This is a steady rise. Minimal yet, started when the convoy hit the detection limits we found for the Arbalest dormant."
Bill frowned as he considered the new information.
"I recommend we pull out," Sousuke said. "If we know that Gauron's machine is active, then we can assume he's waiting for us."
"Oh, let's just forget about it," Jackson said. "I'm not worried about some voodoo machine."
"Are we here for a job or not?" Andy demanded, let's just get on with this."
"We need to pull back," Sousuke said. "We are not geared for taking on Gauron's machine."
"Isn't that what you're here for, boy?" Baptiste asked seriously.
Sousuke was about to protest, but couldn't.
It was, indeed, why he and the Arbalest had been sent on this machine, even more so than his knowledge of the area.
His job was to counter the enemy lambda driver if it showed up.
And it had. Unfortunately...he wasn't ready for a full fight, and he knew it.
"Shifting the plan," Bill said. "We're going to spring the ambush, Sousuke sit back and wait for Gauron to show up and intercept him."
"We're missing the unidentified model as well," Baptiste noted.
"It would be better to..."
"That's an order, Sergeant," Bill said.
"...Affirmative..." Sousuke noted.
"Then we go...on cue," the leader said.
****
"You told me there was something we had to talk about involving these kids of your friend," Ryuu said. "You never mentioned that your friend was Ranma."
He sounded a bit...suspicious was the only word that Akane could come up with.
"It's complicated," Akane said. "I mean, she wasn't even telling Kasumi who she was. I wasn't sure..."
"You weren't sure h...wait did you say she?" Ryuu asked.
"Yes, I did," Akane said. "Last I heard she's been stuck for sixteen or seventeen years."
Ryuu immediately seemed to relax as he heard that bit of news, though he tried to hide it. Akane smirked lightly at the reserved show of concern for Ranma's reappearance.
"You were worried I'd run off with Ranma, weren't you," the woman teased.
"It...crossed my mind," Ryuu said.
"That's almost sweet," Akane said. "Maybe I should look around for a heavy object and shout 'you don't own me' or something else."
"So, Ranma's their mother," Ryuu said, changing the topic as he flushed slightly. "Where's Nod...Mother?"
"She watching the kids," Akane said, moving to the window and watching out into the yard to see where the mercenary was standing guard. "She hasn't talked to Eija or Naiki since the introduction."
As she spoke, the green-haired girl walked into the building looking about cautiously, and then over her shoulder with a grimace.
"Hey, Lady," Naiki said.
"You can call me Auntie Akane, if you want," Akane said with a bit of a tone.
"I'd rather not," Naiki said. "Outside Mom and siblings, most of my family seem to be...jerks."
"All right, Akane-san, then," Akane said, crossing her arms.
"What do you need?" Ryuu asked, demanded really.
"Need to make a phone call?" Naiki said. "Do you mind?"
"Calling your Mother?" Ryuu asked.
"Nah, somebody else," Naiki said, she looked back outside. "Is that bitch really my Mom's mom?"
"What's she doing?" Akane asked.
"Nothing," Naiki said. "She's not even looking at Eija or me. It's like she just looks right through us. Like we're not there."
****
"So, did everyone pack their swimsuits?" Kurz asked with a leer that was earning him a cold look from a Lt Commander in the house overlooking the area.
Fortunately for him, Akane wasn't as reactionary as she used to be.
"Of course," Mizuki declared proudly. "And wait until you see it. It'll knock your socks off."
"Oh, I'll bet," Kurz said with a wide smile.
"Cut it out, Weber," Kaname snapped at the perverted German. "Behave yourself."
"I am behaving myself, baby," Kurz said, winking at Kaname with a pistol shot hand gesture. "This is how Kurz Weber behaves."
"Oh please," Kaname said crossing her arms and glaring, distracted only as Eija came back from her failed attempt to attract her human grandmother's attention.
*****
Sousuke watched as the squad moved into action with precision and skill. His orders were to wait for Gauron to reveal himself, and that's what he was doing: watching, waiting and fretting as the seconds ticked by.
Things were moving smoothly as the first element drew out the savages. Baptiste came down in front of the trucks, blocking their passage, and then the savages started dropping.
One, two, three, and then the unidentified red AS came out of the hills on the other side of the convoy. Obviously it had been shadowing the trucks and waiting for this attack to come.
Sousuke was eager to intercede, but this wasn't his responsibility.
He grimaced as the red AS leaped in with an impressive level of speed and agility to face Baptiste. One of the other M-9s, he thought it was Andy, peeled off from the conflict with the poorly matched savages to join the fight against the red AS with Baptiste.
As the mecha made a charge to slam its monomolecular cutter into Baptiste's machine, the second M-9 shoved it off track. Instead of a fierce stab into the torso, and the pilot cockpit, the red AS only managed a slash through the hip of Baptiste's M-9.
"Damn it!" Baptiste called out. "My left hip actuators blown!"
"I've got you covered," Andy's voice called as he faced off against the unknown AS and its pilot. "This guy's mine."
And then came the moment that Sousuke'd been waiting for as the rear truck exploded into a pillar of sand to reveal a towering white AS.
"That'll be Gauron!" Bill shouted. "Clear the area! Sousuke go!"
"Welcome to the party, Mithril," a raucous and sinister voice declared over the open channels. "We've been expecti..."
He was cut off from his coming monologue as Sousuke entered the battle, forcing Gauron to dodge aside from his pursuit of the M-9s.
"Well! Kashim," he called out. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Why not?" Sousuke asked, thinking of some of what Ranma had instructed him on disrupting a chi-user's concentration. "Is that steel plate in your head shorting out your brain?"
"Ooo, impressive Kashim," Gauron said with a chuckle. "I assume your people have been doing some brain wave research. Are you trying to...'unsettle' me?"
The readings on Sousuke's crystal scanner started to flair as Gauron brought the lambda-driver online and active.
"AI, activate lambda-driver now!" Sousuke declared.
Behind the lambda-driver equipped ASes, Bill and his team made short work of the remaining savages and turned to support Andy and Baptiste against their enemy. The pilot was obviously skilled as he turned his mecha blade to work and managing to lay out damaging strikes on his opponents while keeping out of reach himself.
The red AS, a new Shadow, was more manueverable than the M-9s, but didn't have their armor and protection. A situation quite similar to the old duels of American versus Japanese airplanes.
Unfortunately, the Shadow's ambush had been expected and now it found itself in the M-9's fight: one of endurance rather than finesse.
"Looks like you've lost this fight, Gauron," Sousuke said as his lambda field clashed with Gauron's.
The fields flared brightly before erupting and pushing each of the machines away from each other.
Indeed, it was beginning to appear that his concern was unfounded.
"We've got them on the run!" Jackson called out.
"You've improved, Kashim," Gauron said unconcerned. "A consistant lambda-field. Perhaps you've had a little chemical aid generating the right brain waves?"
"Chemical," Sousuke repeated.
"Oops," Gauron sneered as he circled Sousuke. "I probably shouldn't have said that. Someone's going to be upset with me."
He dashed in slashing with his blade as Sousuke dodged aside in his mecha and retaliated with a strike of his own, blocked by the limbs of Gauron's mecha.
"The merchandise," Gray shouted over the link. "It's a warhead!"
"No problem," Bill said calmly. "As soon as we're finished here, we evac out with it and nobody's the wiser."
Nobody was prepared for the arrival of two more machines.
Warping in out of nowhere, a green mecha with haunched over semi-theropod style posture and a long balancing tail came between Gauron's AS and the Arbalest. The slick machine was constructed out of some strange alloy that looked almost biological. However, it was also covered in small cracks that were very obviously not part of the design.
Near the other five active ASes on the battle, a second machine, bluish and shimmering, built out of oval-shaped body limbs that remained humanoid without coming close to being human. Like the other new AS, it was showing obvious battle damage that had been hurriedly patched up.
"Damn it, where'd these guys come from?" Jackson demanded as he turned around to face the oval-shaped mecha.
As he did so, the red Shadow took advantage of the break in formation to slip in and slash through the side of Jackson's machine. The dreadlocked soldier watched as the cutter came through his cockpit and slashed mere feet away from his body.
As this happened, the bluish mecha deployed an array of extensions similar to the arbalest's lambda-spines. The array had once been all curves and elegance, but at least one element was cut short now and, as it powered up a field of its own, dangerous looking shorts rippled along its body.
"The hell?" Bill said. "Another lambda-driver? It's not registering on the sensors."
The green mecha, meanwhile slashed out at Gauron with an arch of reddish energy even as its tail whipped out against Sousuke, driving him back.
The younger mercenary responded by slashing out with his knife, striking down through the tail's mechanics. When it rebounded off a rippling red-field, he realized that this machine was also armed with something like a lambda driver. Engaging his own lambda driver again, he stabbed outward again.
"What do we have here?" Gauron asked as he leaped over the slashing energy construct and came down, surrounded by a lambda-field.
The red-energy field desperately clashed with the white fields around the Arbalest and the Venom. The field about the unknown mecha, aged and damaged, slowly crackled and buckled inward before the energy erupted around the three machines.
Meanwhile, Jackson was quickly ejecting from his ruined mecha and watching below as the new mecha rose its arms calling a nimbus of blue light out over the mecha in front of it. Whatever the mecha had been planning to do, however, was unsuccessful as the shorts on the machine erupted into a burst of blue fire.
In the wake, Gauron found the remaining M-9's gone, along with his merchandise. He tried to move to follow, but the Venom had overheated again, and refused to go any further.
Above him, the pilot of the red Shadow looked about the battle field. There was practically nothing left of the bluish mecha that had accidentally self-destructed. Of the pilot there was only a semi-identifiable body, perhaps a man, but it was hard to be sure from what was left.
The other pilot had apparently successfully ejected before the Arbalest and Venom had practically obliterated the AS itself.
Baptiste and Jackson, bereft of their machines, sat in the truck, guarding their unconscious and unintended captive.
He seemed a rather young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, with dark hair, red eyes and a trio of red marks on his face.
Grimacing, and not realizing that they had left their target behind practically helpless, the M-9s made a hasty withdrawl into the hills.
*****
"Miss Satomi, this is the Immigration Department," a young demoness noted as she spoke to the caller over the phone. "To contact Lady Persephone, you would need to contact the Avalon Providers. I can't give you access to chief administrators."
She paused and waited.
Jarinta had been born less than a hundred years ago and had lived in heaven pretty much the entire time. She lived a rather ordinary life, hadn't been to Earth more than once or two and basically made a quiet life as a phone-operator connecting demons or gods to relatives that lived in the other side.
It was one of the few open channels either side allowed, even as hostility was mostly fading between the leadership and general population and she felt more than proud to be helping that link between the two nations. It was something she often told her one child, currently going through a first incarnation in an Earth high school.
"Yes, I'm aware that this is the only number Nifelheim residents are allowed to contact," the woman said. "I do see that Lady Persephone has included you as family, but I can't connect you. You could ask your sis..."
She stopped as a shudder went through her body and her eyes glazed over. The goddess next to her, turned toward her in concern, about to ask what was wrong until he saw the blood trickling out of her mouth just before she collapsed into her desk-station.
"Help!" he called out. "Something's wrong over here! We need some healers."
It was less than three minutes before a god and goddess appeared in the office and rushed to the girl's side. However, their rush died as they pulled Jarinta down to the ground and looked her over.
"She's a doublet," one of them said, crossing himself in a rather human fashion.
*****
"Hello?" Naiki said over the phone. "Hello? Are you there? Damn it. Heaven just hung up on me." Sighing bitterly, she set the phone down.
"I'll deal with it later," she decided as she walked away.
*****
The night had been a extended battle as Helmjastad seemed to empty its gates into the desert to strike out at the small group of Mithril operators trying to get a warhead out of the country and to a place where they could safely evac it.
It hadn't been until Sousuke directed them down into the hills that they achieved any sort of a break. It was then that they found a secured location to stop and compare notes for a moment.
And, as Sousuke stepped out of his machine, hidden in the shadow of a rock overhang, he saw their prisoner for the first time. The red marks on his face were unmistakable.
A demon.
"Double check his bonds," Sousuke said immediately.
"Are you about to go on another worry binge, Samurai Boy?" Andy asked.
"Quiet, Andy," Gray said. "Sousuke, do you know something about this?"
Sousuke thought for a moment how to proceed, but he certainly didn't have the authority to make the decision to reveal exactly what the prisoner was.
"The specifics are classified," he said. "I can, however say that he belongs to one of two...organizations that have substantial resources."
"Substantial resources," Bill said. "I've never seen those models they brought in, but they looked like they'd been in mothballs for decades."
"I concur," Sousuke said. "I am also aware of systems in place that would make either side's leadership hesitate to engage in such a risky affair."
He'd heard about the doublet system independently from Chidori-san and Satomi-san, each worried that he might find himself in a fight with a god or demon and end up killing them. He'd reported that to Tessa and gathered from the Captain's response that she'd gotten something similar out of Naiki's mental "babbling".
"In other words, this one's probably off the reservation," Andy said.
"Affirmative," Sousuke noted, looking at the demon with more than a hint of disdain.
Slowly, he noticed the man's eyes fluttering open before they snapped wide and he twisted his head about.
"Humans," he said surprised. "How did you...?"
And so much for classified, Sousuke noted with a sigh.
The Mithril agents looked up at each other for a moment at the man's first word. Gray and Bill looked over toward Sousuke.
"Before you start thinking about trying anything," Sousuke warned pistol out. "I a familiar with members of both your people and the others. If you try anything, you'll regret it."
It was at least half a bluff, since he wasn't sure whether or not he'd recognize or be able to notice every possible ability a demon could manifest, but hopefully it worked.
Of course, if it did, that probably meant a low-class demon.
"Where's MacDanan?" he asked looking about.
"If you're talking about your partner," Andy said. "He was fried when his AS went off like a firecracker."
The demon stared out at them shocked.
"He...died," the man said. "You saw the body?"
"That happens in a fight," Baptiste noted.
"Now, I'm going to ask you a few questions," Bill said. "You're going to answer them. If not, one of my men is going to put you out of our misery."
"You can't do that," the demon protested.
"And why not?" Bill asked.
"If I die, then so will someone else," he said sharply.
"What does that mean?" Andy asked.
"The system I spoke of before," Sousuke noted. "If a member of one group or the other dies, then a kill-signal of some sort is sent to a member of the other. This includes families and civilian support."
"How does a human know about the doublet system," the demon asked.
"I told you, I have encountered individuals on both sides," Sousuke informed him.
"Perhaps you'd like to ask the questions, Sergeant Sagara?" Bill asked a bit irritably.
"My apologies, sir, I did not mean to overstep myself," Sousuke noted.
"Sir, it might be best to have Sagara do the interrogation," Gray noted.
Bill seemed to think about it for a moment, but then turned back toward the captured demon.
"Who are you?" Bill asked.
Sousuke bent down, gun in hand and ready as he started to draw a circle in the ground, another bluff. He knew nothing about seals, aside from the fact that it was what demons and gods did instead of killing to take an opponent out long term. And even that he only knew from overheard snippets of conversation.
Enough to know that there was something to do with circles in a seal.
The action did draw attention, however from the demon, who seemed to look up toward Sousuke a bit concerned. The presence of a human that knew so much about demons and gods was dangerous, there was no telling what this "Sagara" would do.
The demon dropped back into his mind briefly and called up the one spell even low level Rakshasha could cast without words: the calling up of ancestral form.
The scales grew swiftly over his form as his muscles strengthened and the zip ties ripped away from his limbs. The nails lengthened into claws and...a wad of hot lead ripped through his shoulder followed by a rough barrage of physical impacts that tore apart his concentration before he could get his balance.
"I said, you'd regret if you tried anything," Sousuke snapped, bringing his gun to the demon's head. "Drop it."
"You have friends amongst the Gods and Demons, human," the demon said. "You won't risk them by killing me, and I doubt you know any seals."
"I said I was familiar with your people," Sousuke said, dramatically cocking the trigger. "I said nothing about friends."
"Tzelanit," the demon said quickly, shifting back to a bruised human-seeming form. "Demon of Pride, 3rd Class, Rakshasha recruit."
More than a couple of the Mithril soldiers gave Sousuke a long stare as he continued to lean on their apparently inhuman captive.
"And what were you doing here," Bill said, electing not to try and pronounce the name.
"The carapace," Tzelanit said quickly. "We wanted one of your human carapaces."
"What's a Carapace?" Bill asked.
"The machines," the demon noted. "We wanted...to make an impression on the higher ups."
"They wanted either the Arbalest or Gauron's arm-slave," Sousuke concluded, feeling an intense amount of disdain for this demon.
To risk one's own life on such a foolish notion was bad enough, but as a demon, he was risking the lives of a civilian in addition. That was inexcusable.
He stepped up away from the demon and let Andy and Jackson re-secure him, with a few extra zip-ties this time.
"Sergeant!" Bill said, calling Sousuke over. "What's going on, and I don't want to hear 'classified'. We're in a need to know situation now. Tell me about 'demons' and 'gods'."
Sousuke looked around and breathed a deep breath.
"I know only a limited amount," Sousuke said.
"More than I know," Bill said. "Are these things...aliens?"
"Negative," Sousuke said. "Terrestrial, survivors of pre-human civilizations"
"And your relationship?" Bill asked.
"There is...a girl," Sousuke said. "She is a goddess and her sister is half-demon. My regular assignment is as bodyguard to them and one other."
"So, we have non-hostile relations," Bill said.
"For now," Sousuke noted.
"Anything I should know?" the lieutenant asked.
"Gag him," Sousuke suggested.
"Are you afraid he'll cast a spell or something?" Bill asked disdainfully.
"Affirmative," Sousuke noted seriously.
*****
Somewhere between the worlds, a fortress sat at the top of hill in the center of a wide empty plain. One of the few places where servants of Nifelheim and Asgard intermixed freely and worked together on a daily basis.
After the last four thousand years, it was itself almost a completely separate power in the conflict between the two. The original source of demonic and godly defectors and intermarriages, a product of many centuries of daily interaction with the other species, it was certainly a symbol of what Hecate saw as the corruption of her kind.
And when she first thought of taking the system out, so long ago, she'd started to work out a plan to do so. And the first step was building herself a mole.
Which had been a delicate procedure.
It couldn't be a god or goddess, because her plan meant that she'd bee discovered before it was completed. And then they'd check on her associates.
Which had meant turning a demon.
That had been the first time she'd realized she had to work with the other side. It had been a...disgusting...development.
It still was, but now, some thousand years later, here she sat on Earth and waiting. Her mole had only a few more months to finish his task and then she could send her leashed human attack dog in to eliminate the doublet system, and then everything would fall quite literally into place.
She didn't realize that her "leashed attack dog" was accelerating matters yet, and that her mole no longer had a matter of months to finish, but something closer to weeks.
*****
"It was really nice of you to let us stay here for a week, Akane-San," Kyoko said cheerfully as she clicked a picture.
They were sitting around several tables put together, not an infrequent occurrence when there was a school event going on. The man of the house, strangely enough, was the one in the kitchen, though he had help this time from Kaname and Eija.
"Well, Eija and Naiki's mother is an old friend mine and my husband's," Akane responded. "Isn't that right, Ryuu?"
"That's right," Ryuu said. "We trained together when we were younger."
"Really," Kurz said. "You two trained with Satomi, that must have been interesting. She's...something else."
"I can guarantee you," Ryuu said with a smile. "That we're right along with her."
"So, I understand that you children will be visiting for a week," Nodoka said, making a point of interrupting the conversation. "I was curious what brought you here."
"Uhh, I think it's already been said that we're friends of the Satomi's," Mizuki said, rolling her eyes. "Duh."
"Yes, but this is the Saotome residence," Nodoka noted, carefully enunciating the name. "There is no one here by the name Satomi."
Naiki and Kaname produced eerily similar scowls considering they weren't mentally linked to each other.
As Eija walked by her, carrying a tray of gyros bread and lamb meat that she had worked on for the last half-hour, Nodoka shifted her scabbard slightly backwards, catching Eija's feet and sending her stumbling.
The goddess was enough of a martial artist that she herself didn't fall, but her dish went scattering over the floor uselessly.
"You did that on purpose," Kaname snapped angrily. "And she's been working hard on that to impress you."
Naiki was up and starting to round the table as well.
"Who are you talking about?" Nodoka asked.
"Who is she talking about?" Naiki demanded, drawing no reaction from the woman.
Akane quickly stood up and got between Kaname and her step-mother-in-law, holding the school girl back. Ryuu likewise moved to catch Naiki.
Kurz quietly stood up, keeping his normal humor quiet for the moment as he tried to move himself around to stand near the older woman that was causing all the trouble.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Nodoka said. "What is all this commotion?"
"It's fine," Eija said quietly. "I can clean it up."
"Masaru," Akane said. "Help your cousin."
"He has no cousin," Nodoka corrected.
"You damn b..." Naiki renewed her efforts to get around the table at Nodoka only to be easily pushed back into a seated position.
"Mother," Ryuu said. "Stop being rude to our guests."
"I have not been rude to anybody that should exist," Nodoka noted.
And that's when they had to hold Akane back.